tankt

Okay, this real-time-mix-o’-mine is really getting good. From Squarepusher, to Hud Mo, to John Tejada, to Plaid, to the ever elusive Jesse Legg’s o9 (pronouced oh nine) moniker. “Terminal Orange” is perhaps the only track in my arsenal that can follow the intricate rhythms and elegant melodies of Plaid’s “Buns” and do so not merely within those terms but entirely on its own trajectory.

This track is but one of many gems on o9’s massive Church of the Ghetto PC album, certainly one of the very best of its 2004 era, yet still virtually unknown even to this day. I discovered and purchased it from iTunes way back when, but the sound is so incredibly immense and the textures are so full and relentlessly refined that Apple’s 128kbps AAC encoding just couldn’t handle it. Way too much distortion for my delicate ears, which caused me to keep some distance from it for far too long.

I stumbled across “Terminal Orange” again today, and was instantly pulled in and every bit as enamored as my first listen in 2004. Tonight, I repurchased the album from Amazon, getting slightly better sound quality from their VBR mp3s, and the satisfaction of supporting o9 all over again. This particular track defies classification, it sounds like everything and nothing else, so familiar yet entirely foreign. I can’t get enough of it:

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This is the first time I have ever specifically saved an EQ setting in iTunes for a song / album. I finally have the sound just right, with no distortion whatsoever, and I do not want to lose it. And yes, I’m already working on the next track in the mix, and hope to have that sooner than the once a week postings as of late.

As I wrapped up the previous post on John Tejada’s “Bounce” it occurred to me that I had the beginnings of a really good mix. That realization made the pick for the next track even more pressing, it had to not only fit with John’s track but the Hud Mo and Square P ones as well. Hence the slight delay in posting.

I first promised a Plaid Song of the Day way back in October of last year, then just days into my new experiment of posting one song at a time. Now some 20+ songs later, I finally have the perfect track to share — an absolute epic stomper from 2003’s Spokes.

This album came hot on the heels of the P-Brane EP, which was supposed to have marked a clean break from their more melodic days into something much more forwardly percussive. Spokes has always felt much more true to the Plaid sound I so dearly know and love. “Buns” comes near the end, an appropriate capstone if you ask me, so fast at first blush, yet effortlessly full and lush:

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I have tried repeatedly to find anything as immersive and impressive on their most recent full-length, 2006’s Greedy Baby, but it all falls flat to me, even though their live set in April of 2007 — Yuri’s Night at NASA in Mountain View no less — was the best of the four I have seen. Their new album called Scintilli (derived from scintillare, meaning to sparkle or glitter; to give off sparks) is due later this year, and I can only hope it is a return to classic form.

I am admittedly somewhat late to the game on John Tejada — the one and only Titonton Duvanté had him signed to his Residual Recordings label way back in 1998. I even remember seeing flyers for their parties with him in Columbus at that time, but I don’t think I ever made it to one of his shows. Definitely missed out.

John’s tracks were one of my earliest discoveries in the then newly launched iTunes Music Store, and I now have no fewer than 30 John Tejada singles and one-offs from his work on Poker Flat and his own Palette Recordings label. To this day, I continue to religiously seek them out.

I was able to hear him play live in San Francisco last summer, and he did not disappoint. His music has such an elegant and worldly quality to it, which is no surprise given that he was born in Austria to an opera singer (mother) and a conductor (father), and he moves fluently in and out of so many sub-genres of techno. As for “Bounce,” his Los Angeles roots shine bright as day with its almost hip-hop beat and measured production:

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While completely different stylistically, this track is every bit as densely layered and expertly sequenced as my two previous SOTD from Hudson Mohawke and Squarepusher. This is shaping up to be the start of a really good mix…